Evil Tender Presents: In Reference

In mid-2014 Evil Tender Dot Com commissioned photographer Holly Burnham and model Hattie Watson to create a series of photos, following nothing but their own whim. Those photos were given to over twenty artists to use as reference material and all of it together is ‘In Reference,‘ the first Evil Tender Presents gallery show.

This coming Friday February 20th 2015, those posters, paintings, drawings, and embroideries of over 20 artists will cover the walls of Gauntlet Gallery in San Francisco, the host space for the event.

The show will hang like a museum exhibit — model and photographer in attendance, the work they inspired on the walls. The works are largely digital prints and screenprints created by professional illustrators and designers, crafts-folk that spend their working hours putting work together for major motion pictures, bands, and brands.

As a collector myself I wanted to see these artists create works of their own outside of a licensed property, and now I have and we’re ready to share.

‘In Reference,’ in brief —

The woman walks into the room. She’s watched. Observed. The man behind the canvas asks her to pose and she does. He paints. This woman becomes a huntress. She becomes Wonder Woman. The model leaves but she also stays, her image now on the canvas – her body transformed and given new purpose.

In Reference places model Hattie Watson in front of photographer Holly Burnham’s camera, and together they created a series of photographs ready for a gallery wall. Those photographs were then given to a group of illustrators, printmakers, and painters to use as reference material for them to create a piece of their own – to use Hattie and Holly’s images as the beginning for something new.

In Reference explores the relationship between the artist and the subject. The visual conversation that becomes a finished work.